CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Two very different Presidents. Let`s play HARDBALL.
Good evening. I`m Chris Mathews in Washington.
As we begin tonight, the country honors the life and remarkable legacy of President George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President of the United States lies in state right now in the capitol rotunda, and will be memorialized at the national cathedral on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the current occupant of the White House, President Donald Trump, spent the morning raging on twitter about his former lawyer-fixer Michael Cohen and launching new attacks on the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Trump tweeted, Michael Cohen asks judge for no prison time. You mean he can do all the terrible unrelated to Trump things having to do with fraud, big loans, taxes, et cetera, and not serve a long prison term? Well, Trump went on to add, he lied for this outcome and should, in my opinion, serve a full and complete sentence.
Well, last Thursday Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to the Congress about a planned project for a Trump tower in Moscow while Trump was a candidate for President. In a memo filed Friday night, attorneys for Cohen tied Cohen`s wrongdoing at the feet of President Trump himself, noting that quote "in the weeks during which his then counsel prepared his written response to the congressional committees, Michael remained in close and regular contact with White House-based staff and legal counsel to client one." Client one is President Trump.
Anyway, the President`s rage at Cohen kicks off a week that will see at least two major deadlines in special counsel Robert Mueller`s investigation. They include court filings related to former national security advisor Michael Flynn -- remember him? His sentencing is tomorrow. And former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is this Friday`s. We can also see additional filings to come surrounding Cohen before his sentencing on December 12th.
And as if in anticipation Trump lashed out at the special counsel today calling Mueller quote "a much different man than people think, and calling the team investigating his campaign`s potential ties with Russia an out of control band of angry Democrats who don`t want the truth. They only want lies. The truth is very bad for their mission."
I`m joined now By Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for "The New York Times." Joyce Vance is a former federal prosecutor. Emily Jane FOX is a senior reporter to "Vanity Fair." And Betsy Woodruff is a politics reporter for "the Daily Beast".
I want to start with Peter on this. This week it is coming up, the first question I have to ask is why has Cohen`s testimony which has only begun, he has got already 70 hours of testimony, which could range in every piece of Trump`s life, why is he so upset about it? He seems to be firing in all directions now.
PETER BAKER, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, he is upset about it. Look, who knows him more than Michael Cohen? He worked for him for years. He was part of his business dealings. He was part of, you know, fixing problems like the Stormy Daniels thing. If you are President, you don`t want somebody like that beholden to a prosecutor.
Now, the President is making the case that Cohen is making things up in order to lighten his sentence. His tweets today are rather extraordinary, the idea that you would just publicly call on witnesses to resist prosecutors in order to protect himself. But, you know, Michael Cohen represents a threat in a way that Michael Flynn probably does not or other people who have been caught up in this investigation do not. They don`t have the history that Michael Cohen does.
MATTHEWS: Well, maybe Flynn doesn`t know as much, but he is on the other side of the fight now. He`s on the prosecution`s side.
Let me ask you about -- have you noticed how Trump is out there attacking Cohen for full sentencing, life sentences in some cases for people like Cohen, but basically cuddling. Cuddling is the word for people like roger stone, he still wants to keep them on his team.
BAKER: Well, he definitely doesn`t want anybody testifying against him, no question about it. His argument will be that they are being told to say lies. But you know, you hear that a lot in any kind of criminal case. Obviously what Robert Mueller is looking for is corroboration that there are contacts with the Russians that would have given Trump or the Trump campaign heads up on what the Russians were doing in terms of these Democratic hacking, and that his business dealings, the idea of building a tower in Moscow at the same time he is running for President and making comments about the future of Crimea and other policy decisions that would be enacted if he were President, those are pretty important things. And those are pretty important, you know, threats to this President if Robert Mueller starts linking together some, you know, connecting the dots in a way that look damning.
MATTHEWS: Joyce, it looks like the rats are leaving the ship. Is it about to hit the titanic? I mean, I`m dead serious about that metaphor. It looks like people like Cohen and everybody and Flynn, they are all talking. The ones that don`t thing can`t get away with talking because they are in too deep, won`t get anything out because they are too sleazy aren`t talking yet. But it looks like something is coming.
Yahoo! News is reporting tonight that Mueller`s investigation could be wrapping up shortly according to a source familiar with communications between Mueller`s team and defense lawyers. Quote "they have been telling people they are tying up loose ends now and trying to conclude."
Your thoughts - is the Dershowitz sound? Dershowitz wrote that in his column today in the "Wall Street Journal." This thing is reaching an end, is that your sense?
JOYCE VANCE, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I think it`s hard to know if they are wrapping up the entire investigation or just one phase of it. We have always known that Mueller operates in different phases with different prosecutors assigned. You know, we saw the Manafort line, the Flynn line, the Cohen line.
This is a complex case with a lot of foreign dealings overseas, but it would be just like Mueller to stick to his core jurisdiction to work only on interference in the investigation. And as he wraps that up, to send other pieces that are unfinished out to the U.S. attorney`s offices with jurisdiction. So we will have to wait and see. But it`s possible.
MATTHEWS: You mean to limit his range and prosecution to collusion, collaboration with the Russians, or limiting it to obstruction or both?
VANCE: I think to both of those. Those are both pretty clearly - they are explicitly within the mandate that Rod Rosenstein gave him. So he could certainly do that, and then continue to do other matters as Rosenstein said, that arise from his investigation, but he may choose to send those to U.S. attorneys offices like the eastern district of Virginia, the southern district of New York, that have independent jurisdiction,. And obviously there are a whole host of reasons that we discussed for doing that. It protects those investigations from meddling.
MATTHEWS: Well, Betsy, you and I have heard about this Mike Isikoff piece this moving right now. What weight do you give it, that this thing is coming to a head?
BETSY WOODRUFF, POLITICAL REPORTER, THE DAILY BEAST: Isikoff is a fantastic reporter.
MATTHEWS: He sure is. He broke the whole Lewinsky thing.
WOODRUFF: And I can`t confirm his reporting but if your report said, you are on safe ground taking it, seriously.
The indications, of course, that this is correct are the fact that we have already talked about which is we have a Cohen sentencing memo potentially coming out this week, we have got a Manafort sentencing memo. We have got the Flynn sentencing memo. And the Flynn memo in particular has the potential, although we don`t know, but has the potential to be really telling. And part of the reason for that is that Flynn has been working with Mueller`s team for a year now.
MATTHEWS: Right.
WOODRUFF: That`s a ton of time. Mueller four times has asked a federal judge to give him more time to work with Flynn. And there have been basically zero leaks out of Flynn`s cooperation with the Mueller team. We don`t know what he has been telling him and that suggests that Mueller is happy with what he is getting.
MATTHEWS: Let me go to Emily on this. It seems to be 70 hours of inquiry or inquisition, if you will, you want to be tough about it by Mueller`s team of Cohen -- Michael Cohen.
Michael Cohen, as Peter said a few minutes ago, was right in there but he was snuggled in with Trump with everything he was doing. He was his fixer. He was the guy that dealt with the smelly, dirty stuff. He had to clean up things. He was the guy going around and cleaning up afterwards, if he could paying off the people if he could.
It seems like Trump knows all this, like in a bad guy in Colombo. He knows everything he`s done and he knows he has to pay or it because Cohen knows everything he has done. Your thoughts about why this is getting under his skin, the Cohen testimony the last few days.
EMILY JANE FOX, STAFF WRITER, VANITY FAIR: Well, I think there are two reasons. The first reason is just as you said. That Cohen has worked for him for a dozen years. He was in there, not only with him cleaning up his messes, but Cohen was in there with his children cleaning up his children`s messes. And I think that gets under his skin.
The other thing is the President doesn`t like anyone who he perceives as disloyal to him. The way that he has perceived what Cohen has done is him being incredibly disloyal to him. Now, Cohen was acting as most people would in this situation. He was protecting himself. He was protecting his family. He is trying to limit his own jail time. As he has explained to me and as his lawyers have explained, he is trying to do the right thing now finally once he has seen the light and come clean. But the President has perceived this as a personal slight, a personal offense, and that`s part of the reason as well.
Now I will say there is something very interesting in the sentencing memo that his lawyer put out on Friday. He was saying that Cohen was in close contact with people around the President last year when he was preparing to lie for Congress.
Now, he didn`t go as far -- the attorney did not go as far as to say that he was directed to lie to Congress, but I know from interviewing Cohen that exactly around the time he wrote the statement to congressional investigators, that Cohen carried two phones with him. One in a black case and one in a white case. And the phone in a black case he explained to me in the interview was a phone he carried just to receive calls from people in the White House. So, this was someone who was definitely in close contact, at least as he explained it to me, with the White House during that period of time.
MATTHEWS: It is like Velocci (ph) papers.
Anyway, as Trump was calling for Cohen to rot in jail, he had nothing but praise for Roger Stone as I said. Another potential target in Mueller`s crosshairs for having said this yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGER STONE, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER: There`s no circumstance under which I would testify against the President because I would have to bear false witness against him. I would have to make things up. And I`m not going to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, Trump tweeted this morning, I will never testify against Trump. This statement was recently made by Roger Stone essentially stating he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about President Trump. Nice to know that some people still have guts.
Joyce, you have been through this. Why would a guy who might potentially go to prison or President who might get kicked out of office, impeached or whatever, why would he trash one witness? Is he talking to the jury or he just trying to make the guy feel bad? What`s the advantage of trashing someone who has turned states evidence against you?
VANCE: You know, it`s an interesting situation. First, I think it`s important to say that every prosecutor who reads this whole little back and forth sort of yawns because there is absolutely no witness who becomes a cooperator for the government and sings like a bird down the road who hasn`t at some point said they would never cooperate against the king pin or whoever it is that they are being asked to testify against. That just seems really ordinary.
What`s unusual here is the President`s twitter involvement and the underlying question is whether you can obstruct justice, whether you can intimidate witnesses via twitter. It looks like he is flirting with that on a daily basis sometimes.
MATTHEWS: Let me go back to Peter about the week ahead. The whole segment at the beginning of the show is looking ahead. It`s Monday. Of course we are going to get back to the funeral of George Herbert Walker Bush, but we want to get the week started.
It looks to me like there is a lineup of a lot of events coming up this week in filings, about certainly tomorrow with Flynn, and later on in the week Manafort, and then coming up very soon apparently, something again on Cohen. Is there accumulation here that even Trump can`t withstand, where it`s just going to splat against the wall, all these charges?
BAKER: Yes, it`s so interesting. I mean, is it really only Monday? It feels later in the week already. But you`re right. One of these - you know, each of these memos one after the other could be very revealing. It could help us see more clearly where Robert Mueller is taking his investigation. And you can see the buildup, the accumulation that has been waiting to come out, you know, while Mueller passed during the campaign rallies. You know, he was trying to stay low from labor day to Election Day, not seem to be politicking or influencing the politicking. And now that that election is passed, now that thanksgiving is passed as you see sort of the beginning of a series of revelations and disclosures and actions that will begin to pile up. And it does weigh on a President to have these things come, especially day after day after day.
MATTHEWS: And here come the Democrats, the upcoming chairman of the house Judiciary Committee, New York Democrat Jerry Nadler spelled out how devastating Cohen`s bombshell plea could be for President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JERRY NADLER (D), NEW YORK: The fact that he was lying to the American people about doing business in Russia and that the Kremlin knew he was lying gave the Kremlin a holdover him. And one question we have now is does the Kremlin still have a holdover him because of other lies that they know about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Betsy, starting January 3rd, the President faces a second enemy. It`s like Germany and World War II. They are going to have the west as well as the east coming at them, the Democrats and the Congress. If they have any confidence and I think they have some, they will be subpoenaing everything, from his tax returns to the latest filings that they can`t get automatically from Mueller. They are going to go after him for everything.
WOODRUFF: That`s right. And those two things to keep an eye on. First the White House is in a mad dash to lawyer up for the White House counsel`s office has just atrophied over the last few years. And they are scrambling to beef up the legal team they have there because they know they have to brace for impact once the Democratic chairs including Nadler get the gavels.
And the second thing to keep an eye on, of course, is Democrats. You know, comparably scrambling to get on these committees from chatting the folks close to the committee over the course of the day, I learned Democrats are lining up to get on House judiciary because they are expecting it to be the place where the action is, in part, of course, because Nadler will be in a position to preside over any potential impeachment proceedings.
MATTHEWS: It is a whole new world out there starting January 3rd.
Thank you, Peter Baker of the Times, Joyce Vance, Emily Jane Fox of "Vanity Fair," and Betsy Woodruff.
Coming up, say good-bye to George Herbert Walker Bush. We are going to take a long look at his legacy as the 41st President of the United States. And why many see it as the end of an era for the Republican Party? I guess why. We all know why. He was a decent guy.
Now with just weeks to go until the new Congress is sworn in, Republican Party is losing some of its most outspoken Trump critics like senator Bob Corker is going. Jeff flake is gone practically. But they are not going quietly. "The Washington Post" dubbed this lame duck period the last stand of Congress`s never Trump brigade. Unfortunately, it is the last stand.
This is HARDBALL where the action is.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MAJORITY LEADER: Today this hero has returned to the capital a final time.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Throughout his life of service, President Bush personified grace. His character, his character was second to none.
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: His example will always inspire, and his lifetime of service will be enshrined in the hearts of the American people forever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
The country continues to mourn today as we remember a fallen leader. Of course, President George Herbert Walker Bush now lying in state right now in the U.S. capitol a few blocks from here. Within this hour, the public will be welcome to join in that and get in line. I think I`ll be there tomorrow morning.
The 41st President made one last trip back to Washington on air force one today renamed special air mission 41 in his honor. Bush`s service to the country he loved spent a lifetime, of course -- look at this list. A Navy pilot during World War II. Shot down a couple times by the Japanese, U.S. congressman from Texas, envoy to China, CIA director, vice-President, of course President.
In his one term as president, he had a lasting impact both domestically and abroad, of course, passing landmark legislation, including the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Clean Air Act, and, God, even the breakup of the Soviet Union. That was pretty big.
But he also served as a restrained commander in chief in the Gulf War, more than can be said for another member of his family.
At the end of the week, he will return to Texas, where he will be buried alongside Barbara Bush and his daughter Robin, who passed away at the age of just 3 due to leukemia. That was a tragic point in their family`s lives.
For more on the life of George H.W., I`m joined right now by Susan Page, Washington bureau chief of "USA Today," Jon Meacham, of course one of the great presidential historians of our time and author of "Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush," a great book, and Eugene Robinson, columnist for "The Washington Post."
You are all so wise.
I have to start with you, Jon, because I loved your book, especially I didn`t -- I wasn`t as thrilled by his progeny as I was by him. But there are people in that new class of Bushes which are very impressive, not the ones you would think of. People like Marvin, I think, are great people.
Your thoughts.
JON MEACHAM, PRESIDENTIAL BIOGRAPHER: Yes, it`s a significant family.
Some have chosen politics. Some have chosen -- they all serve in some capacity. And I think they do it because the reverence they have for their dad is an ambient reality. I like to say that, if my kids end up having 10 percent of the affection for me that the Bush children have for George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, I will be way ahead of the game.
MATTHEWS: What`s the difference between a Joseph Kennedy and how he influenced his kids and a George Herbert Walker Bush? This is a big divide. So, explain it.
MEACHAM: Such a great question.
I think -- this is something you think about a lot, too, and have written about. I think to some extent it`s the immigrant story vs. the patrician story. The Bushes were not New Englanders. They were from -- the Walkers were from Saint Louis, the Bushes from Columbus, Ohio.
But S.P. Bush, who was Senator Prescott Bush`s father, was the -- sort of the guy at Buckeye Steel for the Harriman fortune. They came east pretty quickly. Prescott Bush, like his son, was kind of entrepreneurial, ended up being more of a big investment banker.
But I think the Kennedys had an ambition that burned even more brightly. The Bushes, I think, felt more comfortable that they had been born to some extent to lead. I think the Kennedys were trying to break into a world dominated by people like the Bushes.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
Gene, your thoughts?
EUGENE ROBINSON, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: He was the last of a kind, I think, in a way, at least in terms of our presidents.
He did have that noblesse oblige. He came from that class, from that family. And he had the -- he was the last, I think, of the period when bipartisanship was a real thing. It was different from pre-Bush and post- Bush, I think.
They were very different things. He was -- it was the time when people really did have friendships and relationships and common interests across the aisle, and when party didn`t mean what it means now. And I think he was, in a sense, a transitional figure for the Republican Party.
I mean, he came in, and he was what we would call a moderate Republican, or not at all a Republican right now actually, given today`s Republican Party.
MEACHAM: But his three best friends, right, because Chris was working with them, were Democrats in the House, Lud Ashley of Ohio, Sonny Montgomery of Mississippi, and Rosty.
MATTHEWS: Yes, who were all Democrats.
MEACHAM: Yes.
MATTHEWS: All in different circumstances. Even when Rosty went to prison for the stuff he did -- and he did do it -- Bush stuck with him as a friend.
SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "USA TODAY": Yes, because that`s who he was, right? He especially stuck with him when he was in trouble. That`s when you especially need your...
MATTHEWS: Let`s talk about personal relationships, not just that some of the schmaltzy stuff, which is all true.
I noticed that he was always really good at nurturing relationships for a good reason. Like, he was working Mubarak years before Mubarak became president of Egypt, sitting at baseball games, autographing baseball boys with him up at Orioles Park.
And then when these people -- it was not a dance learned for the occasion, that he knew, as part of his life and growing up, was getting to know certain people that he would be able to influence at some point when it mattered.
PAGE: You know, that`s -- that is so true. And it`s so true during his presidency and his vice presidency, and actually when he was at the U.N. as well, where he took a long view in building relationships with other foreign leaders or people who were going to be foreign leaders in other countries.
He told his staff he didn`t want the first call that he made to a foreign leader to be a situation where he had to ask for a favor or where there was a crisis.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Teach that to every young person in America right now. Don`t make the first call when you want something.
ROBINSON: Exactly.
PAGE: Make a call and say, how are things going with you? How are things going to have a relationship that provides a context, so that when you have the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, you can call these leaders and forge a coalition.
MEACHAM: The other deft sort of hardball thing he did was, when he was in China, he made sure he went, he and Barbara both went to every national day event, because, as he put it, we`re the big guys, but everybody wants their moment in the sun.
And so he made friends around the world just by showing up at the Australian Day or the Sri Lanka Day, whatever the hell it was.
ROBINSON: It make a difference?
MEACHAM: And he just -- he was a master what Franklin Roosevelt called the science of human relationships.
ROBINSON: Another interesting thing is the relationships he maintained with reporters and columnists who wrote upon him, some who wrote about him in very -- very tough ways.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Like Maureen Dowd.
ROBINSON: Like Maureen Dowd.
PAGE: Or Ann Devroy.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBINSON: Ann Devroy.
PAGE: Yes, an even better example, yes.
MATTHEWS: Of your paper.
ROBINSON: Our late colleague at the "Washington Post," who when she -- when she got cancer, and it was terminal, but he wrote amazing letters to her.
PAGE: Once, I interviewed him while he was president.
And I was working for "Newsday" and not that bright. And I didn`t do a very good interview. At the end of the interview he said: "I don`t feel like you have given you anything. What can I say to help your story?"
(LAUGHTER)
PAGE: Not really the traditional role presidents take.
MEACHAM: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
MEACHAM: And other thing he did is his humor. His humor was great in is.
The day after he dropped out of the `80 race, he -- they`re living on Briar (ph) Lane, wasn`t it, in Houston. And he lets Doug Jeal (ph) from "The Times" come in. And he`s -- there`s a copy of the Yale alumni magazine and "National Review" sitting out.
And he picks up "National Review" and says, "I guess we don`t have to put this out anymore."
(LAUGHTER)
MEACHAM: So, he knew -- he was in on the joke, you know?
MATTHEWS: Well, during his one term as president, President Bush oversaw some of the defining moments, of course, of U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century, including the fall of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War, which he commanded basically.
His response was often refined -- defined as restraint. What a word we don`t hear now.
Here`s how former President Obama described that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What people don`t appreciate fully, even within his own party, is the degree to which he had to land the plane when the Berlin Wall comes down.
You have chaos, potentially, in the former Soviet Union and Russia and uncertainty in Europe. All those things could have gone haywire at any point. And the restraint and the caution and the lack of spiking the football that they showed was, I think, an enormous achievement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Isn`t that something? You`re looking at those Eastern European dictators, and they`re taking the statue down. With Bush, they put the statue up. So interesting.
PAGE: It`s...
(LAUGHTER)
PAGE: I`m sorry. Yes. You want more?
(LAUGHTER)
PAGE: Somebody -- a president has to offer to try to make the interview better.
It`s quite true. The restraint that he showed, he showed also when he left office, right? He didn`t like everything Bill Clinton did as president. He didn`t like everything Barack Obama did as president. And he kept his mouth shut, because he thought that was not the appropriate role for him to take.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: That was true of his son too.
PAGE: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBINSON: Right. I was going to say, I`m not sure he liked everything his son did.
MATTHEWS: He didn`t like -- he and Brent Scowcroft were not big cheerleaders for that second Iraq War, because the second Iraq War was not a good one. The first one was OK.
Thank you, Susan Page, Jon Meacham, who likes everything the Bushes do, mostly, don`t you?
Thank you, Gene.
Are you going to do W. now?
MEACHAM: Thinking about it.
MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you.
Up next: It`s been a month since the midterms, but some races are still in doubt. Do you believe it? In the Tar Heel State, in North Carolina, a race that looked like a Republican victory is now in limbo after officials uncovered election anomalies, isn`t that a nice word, that could mean voter fraud.
This is old-time scary. We`re going to get to this one right now. We had a pretty clean election in this country. We usually do. But let`s check out North Carolina 9th.
This is HARDBALL, where the action is.
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MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
Something strange is happening in North Carolina. Last week, the state Board of Elections and Ethics Reform voted unanimously to hold off on certifying the results of the congressional race in the 9th District, amid reports that absentee ballots may have been tampered with.
Republican Mark Harris beat Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes. Dan McCready conceded. But a Democratic Party attorney provided six sworn affidavits as evidence of irregularity in the district, singling out one rural county, Bladen County.
One witness described an unidentified woman there coming to her house and taking her unfinished absentee ballot to be processed. Another affidavit alleged that an individual paid by the Harris campaign as a contractor to work on absentee ballots would be paid a bonus if Harris beat McCready.
Finally, a political scientists in the state noted that an unusually high number of mail-in absentee ballots requested in Bladen, that county, and neighboring Robeson County were not returned. In other words, they weren`t filed as ballots.
According to "The Charlotte Observer": "More than 40 percent of the ballots requested by African-Americans and more than 60 percent of those requested by American Indians, Native Americans, did not make it to the election officials."
For white voters, that figure was about 17 percent. Big differential.
For more, I`m joined by Allison Riggs, senior staff attorney at Southern coalition for Social Justice.
Thank you so much, Allison.
This is a troubling chase. Explain it now to somebody who`s never heard anything about it, if you could.
ALLISON RIGGS, SOUTHERN COALITION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE: Sure.
Well, what we`re seeing are allegations and significant evidence of voter theft, not vote fraud, vote theft, particularly directed at voters of color.
And there`s two pieces of this that I think are really significant. One is the rate at which Harris won the absentee vote in Bladen County doesn`t match up with historical trends.
Harris won 61 percent of the absentee vote in 2018. In 2014, the Democratic congressional candidate won 67 percent, and the Democratic Senate candidate won 74 percent. So the numbers of accepted absentee ballots are strange.
And then we have 1,200 votes in Bladen County, 1,200 absentee requests, never returned , predominantly people of color. And you see similar patterns in neighboring Robeson County.
And all of this is happening in the context where the legislature is currently contemplating and is about to enact a voter I.D. law that will disproportionately harm black and American Indian voters in this state. It`s very troubling.
MATTHEWS: Well, tonight, WSOC, a local affiliate in Charlotte, is reported they found what appears to be a targeted effort to illegally pick up absentee ballots, in which even the person picking them up had no idea whether those ballots were even delivered to the elections board.
The affiliate spoke to one of those individuals who said she was paid $75 to $100 a week to promote the Republican candidate and pick up finished ballots. She said McCrae Dowless, the man named in the affidavit, told her to collect ballots and hand them off to him. She did not know if the votes were counted.
Let me ask you what -- can you go backwards on this and say, what did these people do exactly to corrupt the system? What actions did they take?
RIGGS: Well, we don`t know all of the details.
What we know -- so we don`t know how all of these absentee requests got sent in. There was an abnormally high rate of absentee requests by mail. What we do know from the affidavit submitted by the Democratic Party is that voters in predominantly African-American, predominantly elderly communities were the ones targeted by these collectors.
And we`re told, you don`t need to fill out this ballot. I will take it in for you. I will finish filling it out for you.
And so I think that in part explains why the vote totals, the absentee vote totals, don`t really accord with past political trends in Bladen County, which is majority Democratic and nearly 40 percent African-American.
MATTHEWS: So the premise here is that Republican operatives, to help the Republican candidate, went out and send a lot of requests in for absentee ballots from African-Americans. They knew their addresses. They know their names.
And then they went around, knowing when those -- when those absentee ballots were going to show up, and collected them, and filled them in for either their candidate or destroyed them?
RIGGS: Yes, I mean, there are both numbers...
MATTHEWS: Is that what you think happened?
RIGGS: I think there are a lot of missing absentee ballots from black and American Indian voters, and I don`t have an answer for where those are.
But it`s deeply troubling. If you look at the number of absentee ballots returned in Bladen and Robeson County in 2014, so the last midterm, compared to 2018, particularly in Bladen, you have a dramatic reduction in the number of returned absentee ballots, and you have a dramatic reduction in the number of returned absentee ballots from black voters.
So where did they go?
MATTHEWS: Well, I know you`re going to stay on this.
Allison Riggs, please get back on the show as soon as you find out something new. This is very disturbing. We should have clean elections in this country.
Up next: After losing what looks like it will be 40 House seats in the midterms, you would think a little soul-searching would be in order for the Republicans, it would be on their agenda.
But aside from outgoing critics asserting themselves in their final weeks in Congress, the anti-Trump people, we`re not seeing a lot of concern on the right about the recent rout. Has the Republican Party learned any lessons here?
You`re watching HARDBALL.
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MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
We`re looking at live pictures now at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda two blocks from here, actually, which is now open for the public. If you want to go to pay your respects -- I think I`ll do it tomorrow morning -- walk past there.
As the country reflects, of course, on the legacy of the 41st president, his passing, it also signals the end of an era I think for the Republican Party. His wing of the party, if you will, seems to be shrinking, even more so since November`s midterm elections. As "The Washington Post" points out today, this is the last stand of Congress`s never Trump brigade as the Republican Party prepares to usher in a class of lawmakers poised to show stronger support for the White House. Isn`t that wonderful news?
But as "The New York Times`" Jonathan Martin notes, Trump`s take over of the Republican party and wins in the Senate has allowed for, well, little self-examination by Republicans about a midterm that seemed at least competitive turned into the loss of almost 40 Republican House seats.
Let`s bring in tonight`s HARDBALL round table. Kimberly Atkins is the Washington bureau chief for "The Boston Herald", Ryan Costello is Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who is retiring at the end of this year, and Howard Fineman is a political analyst for MSNBC. What a great group.
Let me ask you about the inflection point in Republican party. I grew up with a party like yours. My family was from that party. Not me necessarily, at all, I should say. But people like Bill Scranton and Tom Ridge, and a Republican Party that made a lot of sense -- Howard is shaking his head. Made a lot of sense, middle of the road party, pretty much.
Is that gone now?
REP. RYAN COSTELLO (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Well, I think we`re in challenging times if you`re the Republican Party. I think it has dwindled in 2018. I think in `16, a lot of Republican voters took a chance on Trump because he was running against Hillary Clinton. But if I were to look back, it`s much more the party of Pat Buchanan combined with the 2008 recession which I think had a lot of populist voters in the country take a chance on Trump.
MATTHEWS: Howard?
HOWARD FINEMAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think that the old Republican Party that we knew and grew up with in Pennsylvania, me in Pittsburgh, you in Philly, is gone. It`s completely, completely gone. And, and what`s replaced it is clinging to the United States Senate where Republicans have the majority and where Mitch McConnell, who grew up in that tradition, has now become essentially the guy who handles things for Donald Trump on the Hill and insists on a hard gripe few that Trump enforces.
And McConnell is up in `20. Republicans have the Senate. They view that`s the place they get the federal judges if they want. They`ve retreated, as it were, into the citadel of the Senate. That`s how they`re going to run things, with McConnell in charge.
MATTHEWS: Kimberly, did the Republicans have any choice. He seems to be the ones who stick around like Lindsey Graham, Marcia Blackburn coming in, they know they have to be Trumpites. That`s the only future for them.
KIMBERLY ATKINS, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, BOSTON HERALD: Well, look, I think we`re dealing with the time that it`s not just what`s happening with the Republican Party. It`s what`s happening with the country we`re seeing increased polarization. I think the midterm election was a real demonstration of that.
Now, whether Trump is the symptom or the cause, probably a little bit of both. But I think that makes it harder for moderates of both parties, people willing to stand up and say -- Republicans willing to stand up to Donald Trump when they disagree with him. Most of those people got voted out or retiring. And so, now, you`re left with a much more concentrated right and a much more concentrated left.
MATTHEWS: Tell me about the dynamic between the two of them. Do you think that by the fact that Trump is so wickedly awful to a lot of Democrats, they`re polarized because of Trump, have they whip sawed over to the hard left because they`re so mad at his, whatever it is, I don`t know if it`s ideology?
ATKINS: I think it`s both. There was an increasingly left ward move of the Democrats that got accelerated in an age of Trump. And now, Democrats are looking for somebody who is really as opposite as you can get. I mean, I think that`s one reason that people like Beto O`Rourke is so instantly popular is that people are looking for somebody who can speak that left- leaning image.
MATTHEWS: You know, it`s a bad example. In war, you end up imitating your enemy.
Anyway, meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin and Michigan, two states that will matter next election, are using their lame duck decision to take power away from the incoming Democratic governors. In Wisconsin, Republicans held a hearing today for legislation that, among other things, prevent the new governor from withdrawing from a lawsuit challenging Obamacare and make it harder for him to implement state laws.
Governor Scott Walker downplayed the significance of this plan while talking to reporters tonight, according to "The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel". He said, quote, I actually think if you look at much of what they`re talking about is codifying practice for all the talk -- this talk about reining in power. It really does.
Anyway, in Michigan Republicans have legislation that would allow the legislature, Republican legislature, instead of the attorney general to intervene in court cases and take campaign finance oversight away from the secretary of state.
Howard, this is sort of revanchism as they say. You don`t want the new guy to come in and have any power.
FINEMAN: Well, as I said, they`re building a citadel for themselves that looks inward not outward, and they`re laying traps and mines outside the walls of the citadel everywhere they can. This is not an expansive party.
This is not a theory of expanding your tent or expanding your appeal. It`s focusing in on what you can protect.
MATTHEWS: The logger.
FINEMAN: Yes. What you can protect, the logger, the treasury, the innards of the castle. That`s what they`re doing.
MATTHEWS: How do you see it, Ryan?
COSTELLO: Well, I think in every state, this is not just a Republican thing. It happens to be in Wisconsin and Michigan right now. But we`ve seen this in years past. Constitutionally, I question whether this stuff can be done.
MATTHEWS: Passing statutes as you lose --
COSTELLO: In order to reduce the power of a state office just because an incoming member happens to be of another political party. I think there is some constitutional questions here that some of this stuff will never --
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you a broader question. Howard, you`ll get into it.
When your party recognizes you`re facing a demographic time bomb, this assumes a couple things, like African-Americans are going to stay 90 percent Democratic, since the `60s. But they weren`t always that way. It used to be about two to one, more of a Party of Lincoln.
And Hispanics are in play because you got people, Mexican-Americans, and Cuban-Americans very much in play, especially Mexican-Americans. They`re not all lefties. Puerto Ricans may be. But these are just patterns. I think the Republican Party is girding itself for being a minority party, whether it`s voter suppression, whatever games rather than trying to get in the game and trying to be a majority party.
ATKINS: Yes, I mean, I think a lot of times short term gain is focused in this modern era of politics in way that makes it really hard to see how the Republican Party sustains in long term. And you`re absolutely right. I mean, voters, including Hispanic voters, Latino voters were not monolithic. There was a time that Cuban reporters were almost reliably Republican.
MATTHEWS: And California and Texas were heavily Republican.
ATKINS: Yes, and states like Texas -- I mean, in states like Florida which make a huge, huge difference, but after Reince Priebus, remember that seemed so long ago in 2013, said they have to look out and learn how to look outward and make that pitch to a broader group of people. Republicans have turned and gone the exact opposite way doubling down on a small portion of the base and really catering their policies to that.
COSTELLO: I think a lot of Republicans see that and want to pivot. And I think that they want to broaden. I think it becomes very difficult when the president just dominates the discussion and, frankly, you had a lot of voters go to the polls, Republicans. If they didn`t like the president, they were not voting for their member of Congress. You had members of Congress, state senators, state representatives with favorability ratings at 55, 60 percent get 45 percent of the vote because you had Republican voters going in saying, I`m a Republican, but I can`t do it this time.
FINEMAN: There is a rural imbalance, a growing rural tilt in the Senate for constitutional reasons because of two senators for each state. You`ve got a lot of Republican senators up in red districts in 2020. You`ve got Mitch McConnell up in Kentucky where Trump won by more than 20 points.
Unless Mitch McConnell -- and I don`t mean to make him a bigger player than he is, but he`s a big player. Unless and until he and the senators respect his political acumen, unless and until Mitch McConnell says enough, we`ve got to change our tactics and change our vision, nothing is going to happen. But what Mitch has said is we`re going to keep putting judges on the federal bench with our majority of 53 Republican senators, and we`re going to build a legal citadel to go along with the political one to allow us to play out this string that we have committed ourselves.
MATTHEWS: Sounds like John Marshall. The early federalists did that, remember?
FINEMAN: Yes, well, not just anymore, I don`t think.
MATTHEWS: Anyway, the round table -- well said. There`s no more, therefore don`t do what they did.
The round table is sticking with us. Up next, these people tell me something I don`t know. They keep doing that.
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MATTHEWS: We`re back with the HARDBALL round table tonight.
Congressman Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania for a while still is going to give us something we don`t know.
COSTELLO: I talked to my colleague Tom Emmer today, the incoming NRCC chair, very aware of the challenges facing House Republicans in 2020. We need a suburban agenda that isn`t defined just by Donald Trump, much more broader than that. And number two, Act Blue totally destroyed us in the fund-raising capacity.
So, coming out with an online portal to have Republicans match what Democrats did this time-out is issue number one and focus number one.
MATTHEWS: How do you get small donors to vote Republican?
COSTELLO: It`s the challenge. Well, the problem for Republicans is you have a lot of outside conservative groups pulling in dollars all over the place. Democrats are much better in consolidating that through one portal.
MATTHEWS: Is being pro-life hurt your party?
COSTELLO: I don`t think that that`s the issue anymore. Culturally, I think it`s much more on the gun issue and the unwillingness of Republicans to say, background checks for all commercial sales is something that`s reasonable and suburban --
MATTHEWS: Toomey is for that. Toomey cut it, right?
COSTELLO: And I think that`s why he won.
MATTHEWS: That`s right. We agree.
Thank you, Kimberly Atkins. Thanks, U.S. Congressman Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania and Howard Fineman.
When we return, let me finish tonight with a personal remembrance of President Bush.
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MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with a personal remembrance of President Bush.
In the spring of 1989, newly inaugurated President Bush invited my wife Kathleen and I to the White House for dinner in the family quarters, upstairs, and a movie afterwards. There`s just one obstacle, my parents were scheduled to visit with us that night to visit us. Fortunately, President Bush welcomed all four of us to dinner and as I said at a movie.
The magic began when we arrived to the White House, greeted at the top of the stairs by the president and the first lady. The president grabbed my two parents and disappeared. Barbara gathered us and some other guests took us on a tour of the family living area.
Well, after the tour from the first lady, I was standing on the Truman balcony overlooking at the South Lawn when I looked to the French doors of the White House to see three people chatting away like old pals, dad, mom, and the president of the United States. I remember over dinner later that night when my dad signaled to me in language that required no words, that this was the greatest night of his life.
There was an interesting postscript. During that evening, President Bush commented about our family being Democrats. I said that the family was overwhelmingly and historically Republican. I was the black sheep in the family.
Well, several months later I was sitting in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing for a press briefing for my newspaper, the "San Francisco Examiner" and some other Hearst papers. And after the briefing was finished, I noticed President Bush actually heading down this long table toward me. And when I arrived in front of me, he paused, quote: So, has your father changed your mind about things yet?
What a nice gentleman. I had a hard time being tough on him after that, especially when dad asked me to be nice for what he`d done for our family.
Well, that`s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.
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